If you’ve ever had a good experience with an Uber driver, DoorDash delivery person, or pretty much any other gig worker, you instantly wish you could get them the next time you pick up the app.
Today Shipt announced it was going to let you do just that (kind of).
Shipt, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Target, today announced their new Preferred Shopping feature, which allows customers to create a list of their favorite shoppers and – provided they’re available – use one the favorites whenever the customer shops with Shipt.
Here’s how it works: If a customer has a good experience, they can rate at shopper at 5 stars and add them to a preferred shopper list. From there, the shopper gets a notice and can accept the “request” to be added to the list.
If the shopper accepts, Shipt will “prioritize” that shopper for the customer, so the two are paired (provided the shopper is available) the next time a customer opens the app.
Why a request? My guess is this gives the shopper a little control over whether they see a particular customer in the future since, let’s be honest, not all customers are great to work with.
It’s a nice feature, but why is Shipt going through all this trouble? Wouldn’t it be easier to pair whoever’s available with the customer? Yes, but apparently, pairing customers with preferred shoppers is good for business. Shipt’s trials showed that paired shoppers ordered more often, had higher overall satisfaction, and tipped more.
In a way, it’s not unlike asking for your favorite waiter at the corner restaurant. You develop a relationship with them, they take good care of you, tips get bigger, everyone’s happy.
Long term, however, I wonder where this goes. Do gig workers like personal shoppers start to develop essentially what equates to their own book of business? Does greater loyalty from the customer and the resulting financial benefit for shoppers lead to less turnover for the Shipt workforce?
Another question I have is whether Instacart, the 800-pound personal shopping gorilla, will go in this direction. While they’ve hinted at it as a possibility in the past, as of now, they’ve never made it happen.
But who knows? With Shipt offering the preferred shopper option, maybe Instacart will follow.
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